


The Night We Met

by stillusesapencil



Series: Javid's indie playlist [2]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Flashbacks, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22809820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillusesapencil/pseuds/stillusesapencil
Summary: There is no place in this city that Davey can go that is not bookmarked by Jack Kelly.Once upon a time, he’d had all of Jack at his fingertips. Now he has nothing at all.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Series: Javid's indie playlist [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616590
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	The Night We Met

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lord Huran's [song by the same name.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtlgYxa6BMU.com)
> 
> Also, this was supposed to be ~3x shorter than it is.

_ There is no place in this city that Davey can go that is not bookmarked by Jack Kelly. The coffee shop, the deli, campus, the theatre, even his house. Everywhere is Jack, and a memory, and another boulder to climb over, and yet another moment when his heart breaks all over again. Once upon a time, he’d had all of Jack at his fingertips. Now he has nothing at all. _

~

Davey remembers it so clearly--the golden hour light and the campfire smoke, the settling twilight with the first glints of stars. Jack had his ballcap jammed on his head, his padded vest zipped up to his chin with his nose tucked in. The camping trip was a boy’s weekend, them and Race and Spot, Charlie and Albert and Finch.

By the fire, Charlie held pronged roasting sticks over his knees, his wheelchair locked and securely braced on the uneven terrain. Jack ran a gentle hand over his brother’s shoulder, checking in for the millionth time. Charlie looked up and smiled, and tipped a toasted marshmallow up to Jack.

Jack leaned in and opened his mouth wide, eating it off the roasting stick in one bite. Immediately, he began to squawk in protest, eyes watering and hands fanning his face.

Albert laughed. “What’s wrong?” he teased.

“‘Awt!” Jack managed through the marshmallow, sticky strings clinging to his lips and cheeks. Even with their chorused teasing and laughter, he finally swallowed, smacking his lips and shaking his head. “Delicious,” he grinned, turning to Davey.

Davey, his hands in his jacket pockets and beanie pulled over his ears, shook his head, unable to stop the smile that crept over his face. Warmth spread in his chest that had nothing to do with the campfire and certainly nothing to do with the temperature of the great outdoors. 

Yeah, Jack was an idiot, but he was Davey’s idiot. 

Later, after most of the rest had retreated to their tents, and Jack had carefully helped Charlie to bed, he and Davey sat around the glowing embers of the fire. Davey cupped a thermos of tea in his hands and leaned against Jack, soaking up his warmth. 

He cannot remember what was said that night, but he remembers the inflating ache in his chest, the slowly growing burden of knowledge that he was falling in love with Jack Kelly, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

~

_ He drifts on the golden sands of memories, floating through the times when he and Jack were inseparable, when being in love with his best friend was easier, because Jack was there, and not half a world away. When the biggest obstacle was Davey’s fear, and not 2000 miles and 30 hours between them. _

~

“I got the internship.” Jack didn’t look thrilled. Rather, he yanked on his baseball cap, adjusting it on his messy hair, and refused to meet Davey’s eyes. “In Santa Fe.”

“That’s...great!” Davey squeezed up a smile, but his heart wasn’t in it. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah. It’s...I’ve wanted to go there for a long time.” Jack spread his hands in a i-can’t-believe-it gesture.

“I’m so proud of you,” Davey said, feeling hollow and scraped raw. “C’mere.” He wrapped his arms around Jack, pulling the shorter man to his chest, accustomed to the way their torsos press together. 

What he wasn’t used to is the way Jack wrapped his fingers in the back of Davey’s shirt and hung on, like the fabric between his fingers was the only real thing in the universe. 

Something hot, sharp, and heavy settled in Davey’s sternum. 

This was how it began. This was how he lost Jack.

~

_ Were he a better man, he would feel happy for Jack. He’s finally living his dream, becoming immersed in his culture, becoming a professional artist. All Davey can feel is regret.  _

~

“God, Jack, what’s gotten into you? You’re drunk and upset and I barely see you anymore! You’re killing yourself like this!” Only weeks out from moving, Jack slumped in the passenger seat of Davey’s car, dead drunk. He’d called begging for a ride, not for the first time since the internship came in. Seeing him like this hurt Davey in a visceral way he couldn’t articulate.

Jack mumbled something, syrupy and thick.

“I just want to make the most of what we’ve got left, Jack, and you’re--” he raised a hand from the steering wheel and slammed it back down. “Goddammit Jack, you’re leaving and it’s like you don’t even care!”

Jack rolled his head to look at Davey. “I do care. ‘N I hate it. If’m drunk, can’t be sad.” He laughed, a bizarre, jangling sound. “M’so sad…” he sniffed, looking down into his lap.

Davey looked over at him, horrified. He wanted to say something, but all reasonable thought fled him, and the walking mouth had nothing to say at all.

“Hurts me t’ leave ya, Davey,” he slurred. 

And Davey, his heart simply broke, a split running directly down the middle and sending the pieces to thunder somewhere in his stomach, settling with a tight ache that burnt at the back of his throat and crept up his skull. 

Voice cracking, he said, “Then why must you go?”

Jack doesn’t remember a thing in the morning. 

~

_ He wishes he could do it all over again, relive every single moment.  _

~

David slumped over his book, exhausted by the repetitive nature of the themes of Romantic poetry.  _ I get it, you feel sad, you go for a walk, you see a bird, the bird is God, and everything is better.  _

“Hey.”

Startled from his reverie by a boy on the other side of the library counter, baseball cap slapped atop messy hair, David glared at him. The boy had a green stain of some kind on the shoulder of his t-shirt--paint, maybe. 

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I have a paper due tomorrow for Western Civ. Can ya help me, buddy?” His voice was thick with New York twang.

David prepared himself. Last minute paper. Oh joy. “What’s it on?”

“Uh, some old story--Gilderoy? Goldenmesh?”

David sat up straight. “Gilgamesh?”

“Uh, yeah, that sounds right.”

David sighed. Clearly this boy had no respect for the importance of literature throughout history. “It’s the first recorded written work in the history of the world.”

“Oh, that must be why he’s makin’ us write a paper on it.”

“Probably.” David rolled his eyes at the boy’s apathy; he’d taken dual credit Western Civ during high school and found the ways in which literature had influenced and twined through history utterly fascinating. Which was probably why he was an English major. He typed a few keys on the computer, pulling up a page of results. “There’s some peer-reviewed articles on the school’s online resources, and a couple books on the second floor.”

The boy shifted from foot to foot. “Look, uh...I don’t always have the greatest time reading. Words kinda get mixed up and--well, articles with tiny print aren’t good. Can’t you like...” He sighed, scratching at the nape of his neck. 

David looked back up at the boy, and saw him for the first time. His hands were speckled with orange paint. His backpack was slung over one shoulder, and out of it poked a battered copy of an art textbook. His ballcap was ratty and haphazard, but his face was kind. Tired. There were stress lines around his brown eyes, but even in his exhaustion they held a hint of a smile. 

David checked his watch. He got off in five minutes. “Look, um. What’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Jack, I’m about to get off my shift. If you’d like, we can get a table over there and I can help you write your paper. I can manage some of the research stuff, and you can do the actual writing. Is that...is that okay?”

The boy-- _ Jack- _ -blinked at him. “Uh...you sure about this? I ain’t the easiest to work with. I get distracted a lot.”

“You know, I get distracted a lot too. Like when I’m supposed to be working on one thing but then I find another thing much more interesting? And then suddenly I’m hours down an internet hole, and...do you do that, or is it…is it just me.”

Jack stared at him a moment longer before bursting into a laugh that caused another student to look up from her book and  _ shhh! _ at them. “I like you. What’s your name?”

“David.”

“Ok, Davey, I know a coffee shop close to here that’s really good. Got a friend workin’ there. If you really want to help me, let’s go there. Coffee’s on me.”

And David said yes. 

**Author's Note:**

> So in the song, there's this line: "I had all and then most and then some and now none of you" and that's basically the inspiration for the whole structure of this thing. And, of course, the night we met.


End file.
